I’m Malcolm Foster from KWBU, with this week's edition of Likely Stories.
Soren Johanssen was a good man. A faithful husband. A loving father and a devout Mormon. When Soren dies of Brain Cancer at the age of 45 he finds the afterlife he was expecting doesn’t exist. Instead, he (along with everybody else who didn’t dedicate themselves to the ancient belief of Zoroastrianism is placed in a bespoke hell—an underworld based on ‘The Library of Babel’ by Jorge Luis Borges
The library to which Soran has been sent is billions of light-years deep. It contains every book ever written alongside every book that could, conceivably, be written. An almost infinite inventory. Most of which is absolute gibberish. However, if Soren can find the one book which tells the complete story of his life, he’ll escape his torment.
Stephen Peck’s version of Hell is a really strange but curious setting. It’s a place in which human measurements of time still apply, yet people who have died before and after Soren coexist in the same space. All inhabitants of the library find themselves at the peak of physical and mental wellbeing. There are rooms with beds in which those cast down to hell can sleep, kiosks which can produce whatever food or drink is desired, and the occupants of this particular abyss can (and do) die. But when morning comes, no matter their physical state, they’re reset to start another day.
As Soren searches for the book of his life within this liminal realm, he tries things his belief structure on Earth wouldn't allow him to experience. He finds and loses both love and friendship, and he also bears witness to how the worst of human behaviour will find a way to emerge, even on celestial plains. Through all of this, he also becomes well versed in isolation and loneliness, which gives the book space to question the value, density, fragility, and double-edged essence of time. To live forever has always appealed to us humans, but truly, who in their right mind wants to outlast the lifespan of multiple universes? Especially when you have very little to read.
Both a deeply engaging thought experiment and a poignant meditation on existence, ‘A Short Stay in Hell’ also brings to focus the realization that the moments in which we feel most alive are exactly that…moments. And that the relationships we cherish most are all too fleeting, even if they last beyond a thousand years.
What it lacks in plot and character building, ‘A Short Stay in Hell’ more than makes up for with deep contemplation and even deeper feeling.
